Thursday, June 14, 2018

Not a pretty picture TFC 4 DC United 4

(Quickly now) I throw together a bloglet of my thoughts from last night's game with DC United. The World Cup Russia 2018 is about to hit all of us with a tidal wave of games, so I write hurriedly while watching game 1 Russia v Saudi Arabia...I am still struggling to come towards some grasp of what happened.Yes, it is possible that TFC felt that DC United were a struggling team and therefore all Toronto had to do was show up and waltz through the game.Yes, it is possible that the wrong defensive alignment was part of the woeful TFC first half. We could blame the wind. Too many times this season we have seen other teams cut through the Toronto backline like a hot knife through butter. The Zavaletta / Hagglund combo just seems to invite fast attackers to let loose. A healthy Chris Mavinga is required. It was great to see a healthy Justin Morrow get second half playing time. A return to Morrow and Mavinga down the left side and the new combo of Auro Jr and van der Wiel on the right will calm the defensive waters. Question still remains about the central roles.My big concern is a lack of attacking play in the middle of the pitch. It was true of the first half than the second half last night, but it has been a concern. It seems that the book on defending against TFC is allow the ball to stay wide and crowd the middle. Osorio, Vazquez and Giovinco had trouble moving forward in central traffic. It seems that combination short passes too often go astray and giveaways abound. Ricketts is not the right sort of player for weaving passes and dribbles. Marky Delgado has vanished from the bench and Ager Aketxe does not get the call from the bench.So a point was gained when TFC was down 0-3. If the Columbus Crew comeback was a negative for TFC fans, then one has to grant credit to the comeback effort. The standings still look grim for playoff purposes.Let the World Cup distract all and a fresher TFC greet us come Canada Day.